How Many Seconds
by yashabeau
Summary: After an Order mission goes wrong, James and Lily realize what they have at stake. Jily, smut.


My first Jily fic published on here. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

The first time it happened was after a mission, one of many in which things went wrong. They were outnumbered but keeping a fighting chance, surprise on their side, until Voldemort made an appearance. Two were dead already, and Lily stepped in between him and a wounded Order member without thinking.

He cast avada kedavra at her so quickly she barely had time to cast a shield; the force propelled her backwards, and she landed on her back, head cracking against the ground, seeing stars.

Before he tried to kill her, the dark lord had called her mud blood. He knew her name.

Other Order members swarmed in front of her, and she wouldn't see that terrifying face again for a while. Hands, frantic on her face and neck, brought her back to the present.

"Lily?" She heard Alice Longbottom before she saw her face, worried and confused. "Lily, can you hear me?"

Lily nodded, not finding her voice.

"Lily!" She recognized that one immediately, over the sounds of fighting and chaos. She turned and saw James running toward them, shouldering through the crowd and smoke.

He dropped to her side, grasping her face. "Lily, love?"

She was nodding, trying to speak. She felt blood matted in her hair, tasted it in her mouth. Her leg was in bad shape, not from Voldemort, but a different man, one she left hexed and stunned on the ground. "I'm alright. I'm ok."

He helped her up and held her to his chest, shouting something to Alice. They were falling back. Too many death eaters were coming, the plan had failed. She felt the swift, nauseating pull of apparition, and they were suddenly in a small room in the basement of a muggle restaurant, the agreed upon meeting place for the night.

As they waited for their friends with held breaths, and she was tended to by a healer, James did not let go of her once.

Her, James and Sirius apparated back to their loft, a dingy one on some muggle street, and James made them tea to have on the couch. They talked and sat in heavy silence for an hour or so, until Sirius gave her a kiss on the head and left to have a drink with Remus and Frank. She and James were alone. She could sense his tension, had sensed it for hours now, but it was now that it seemed most heady, his leg moving agitatedly without his notice.

She put a comforting hand on his knee before she stood to bring the mugs to the kitchen, his eyes on her back the entire time. She was washing them at the sink when she felt hands on her hips. The mugs dropped carelessly when he turned her around. She was trapped against the counter and he was cupping her face. The look in his eyes was blazing.

"I—"

His lips crashed onto hers, stealing her breath and her words. She closed her eyes and held onto his wrists for dear life. His mouth was warm on hers, soft but unyielding, uncompromising.

She almost lost, she almost _died_. Now she was being held and kissed senseless by the man she loved, and the composure she'd tried to keep slipped and fell away.

She tore away and threw her arms around him. He crushed her to him, lips on her neck, but it was too much and barely enough, and she whispered, "I'm so scared."

"I won't ever let him hurt you. Do you hear me?"

"Not for me. For everything. We just...we're not going to be able to protect everyone."

He pulled away a fraction, only to touch their foreheads together. "Listen to me. You're here, you're with me. Don't think about anything else. It's you and me tonight, and I love you more than life, and I almost lost you."

She went on her tiptoes to kiss the tears that were welling in his eyes, and he shuddered, clutching her tighter.

Soon, the gentle kisses on her neck turned biting, and she gasped. James made a hungry noise at the sound and pried his lips from her skin, taking her mouth. He yanked her from the counter, drawing her against his chest until her legs wrapped around his waist and he walked them to the bedroom.

A picture frame fell and shattered when he stopped to press her roughly against the wall, hands moving from her face to her neck to her breasts.

By the time he pushed her onto the bed their shirts were off, and he was yanking her jeans from her legs. The heat coiling in her stomach, between her hips, was searing. Her mouth was dry.

"Please," she moaned, as he peppered biting kisses to her inner thighs. "Please, James."

He always liked it when she said his name, when she begged. His mouth was on her before she could blink, and she shivered, clutching her own hair. During this exquisite torture, his palm trailed up her stomach, between her breasts, until he pulled her hand from her hair and put it on his own. She clutched his thick hair obligingly.

Dear Merlin, it was like he was trying to suck out her soul. His lips moved with zeal, and she couldn't keep her hips from bucking, her voice from cracking.

"Don't come," he said from between her thighs.

"I have to!"

A light smack on her thigh. "Don't."

When his teeth nibbled her clit, she yanked his head from her. "Stop, stop, I'll come,"

He crawled up to take her lips again; she could taste herself in his mouth, and shuddered. Her hand travelled to the bulge in his trousers, snaking under to touch his hard length without barriers.

He let out a pained groan. Slowly, like a marionette whose strings she controlled, he thrusted into her hand, resting his temple on hers.

"James," she whispered. "Inside me."

He sat up abruptly, unzipping his trousers and pulling them down. They landed on the floor where he chucked them.

His hard, warm chest covered hers as he fell atop her, the lean strength of his arms keeping him up. Again, he attacked her neck, and again her eyes fluttered. Right over the beating point of her pulse, he sucked and sucked until there was sure to be a dark bruise. The thought of seeing his mark on her in the morning, proof of something wonderful and sexy, made her keen.

She felt his smirk on her skin, and smacked him lightly. "Don't be cocky."

When he pulled back, some of the darkness was gone from his eyes, and they shone with love and light. "You're right, I've got plenty of cock already."

She covered her face as she laughed at his joke. "Dear god. I really shouldn't encourage you."

"To do what? This?" He gripped himself and slid into her, like a key into a lock. She nodded frantically, breathlessly, smile dropping like an anvil.

"By all means, fuck me."

He thrust his hips, nearly sliding them up the bed, dropping onto his forearms. His palms, warm and damp, cupped her face as he attacked her mouth once more. She whimpered with every thrust inside her, rough and teasing.

"Like that?" He whispered against her skin. She nodded.

The lips trailed from her lips to her chin to her neck, where he laved at the tender, bruised flesh. The slight sting of it was heaven, but she wanted his mouth on hers more.

"There's going to be a mark," she chided lightly, smiling. It didn't matter anyway—there already was one.

He pulled back, pupils nearly black. "That's the idea, love." He pushed back onto his hands, straightening his arms. She saw the corded muscle of his chest, the V of his hips...him disappearing inside her.

Her hair was splayed on the pillow like a wild red fan, and her cheeks were warm under his gaze. She loved it when he grew this intense, when his hazel eyes looked at her like they would swallow her whole, but the insecure part of her tended to resurface as well.

"James," she complained. He'd slowed down his pace, still rough but leisurely, like they had all the time in the world. She hooked her legs around his waist. "Faster,"

"Look at me, Lily." She did without question. He wasn't smiling. "Keep looking at me, don't look away. That's it."

He gripped her wrists where they were lying bonelessly by her head, pinning them to the bed. Lily arched, pressing her sensitive breasts to his chest. All the while, they looked at each other as if they never again would get the opportunity.

"You're going to live," James groaned. "I'll kill for you if I have to. I'll kill him."

"James," she cried. "Merlin."

"People will see the marks on your neck tomorrow, I'm not going to let you spell them away. They'll see them and know exactly who was fucking you, that you're mine."

"Yours,"

His pace was frantic now, and she felt him all the way down to her toes, grazing the spot inside her that made her eyes clench shut. It was too much, not nearly enough, and she loved him.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you," he answered back, as he always would.

She came hard when he let go of her wrists and his thumb found her clit, nipping his earlobe and gratefully using her freed hands to clutch at his back. It was the sweetest, most intense kind of pleasure, where her mind went blank and numb and her body felt like one big nerve.

Where her ear pressed against his throat, she could feel his growl, his hands tightening around her waist, and his hips stuttered.

"Merlin," he moaned, collapsing onto her. Strands of his black hair stuck to the sweaty skin of her chest. She wondered if he could feel her hammering heart. He rolled off her onto his back, and the wonderful cool air greeted her bare chest. She stretched.

It wouldn't be the last time a close call made either of them desperate. That was their trade, the name of the game. All they could do at this point was hold and cherish every second together, with those they cared about and were fighting for. They didn't know how many moments were left. One thing was for certain...as she rolled over and looked into his eyes, crinkled by his sheepish grin, she knew it was worth it.


End file.
